Moms Have ‘Pinterest Stress’ And All I Got Are A Bunch Of Recipes I Will Never Make

You can go ahead and add me on Pinterest. I was an “early adopter” of Pinterest. It used to be my favorite thing ever and I would spend hours collecting pins of things I wanted to make, things I wanted to buy, recipes I wanted to try and ….. manicure pictures. It was a super fun way to pass the time and I found so many of the things I found to be totally inspiring and it was easy to categorize and make my boards look all pretty when in reality, I had a few hampers of clothing in my laundry room I still needed to put away and my upstairs bathroom has CARPETING in it and I am not sure how old I will be after years of saving every penny and not buying fancy cheeses before I can afford to go all Restoration Hardware on it. But Pinterest is a place to dream! It’s where you can contemplate putting a swing in your living room or making your kid a fairy-light bedecked reading nook out of an IKEA loft bed. It’s also where you can pin things like this:

I don’t know why I pinned an anatomical cat model OK I just did! Get off my back! But my Pinterests boards are full of nonsense like this. I don’t pin as much as I used to, but according to The Daily Mail a lot of you moms are out there pinning away and it is making you all depressed:

In a survey of 7,000 moms, conducted by Today, 42 per cent said that surfing the photo-sharing site made them feel depressed about the fact that their own lives did not reflect the same picture-perfect standards.

And three in four said that the pressure they felt from browsing Pinterest was worse than any judgement they might experience from other moms.

I’m not exactly surprised by this, which is why a few weeks after I joined Pinterest I started getting super annoyed at how perfect everyone’s DIY pins looked and I obnoxiously started creating, photographing and pinning things like this:

And yeah, I didn’t even rotate it correctly and people re-pinned it and I am not sure if they did because they thought it was funny or they also wanted to make an apple with some tinfoil crumpled around it with a plastic cat on top.

I still like Pinterest. I will still sign on when I want dinner or decorating or manicure inspiration, but I’m not as addicted as I once was. I find it hard to believe that moms are actually feeling super stressed out about it, but I guess it’s just an updated way of feeling like every issue of Martha Stewart Living makes me feel. It’s just a lot harder to draw ejaculating penises with sharpie on your computer screen if all the perfection gets to be a bit too much.

Isn’t this the same dilemma we had with “Avatar” – where people went totally koo-koo bananas because the real world wasn’t the same as Pandora?

I suppose with Google Glass, those macaroons will look awesome to everyone with real-time Instagramming.

If not, there’s always http://www.pinterestfail.com/ (I like that one because it’s not just a click-and-laugh site. It suggests methods to improve on the failed projects).

So, stop pinning and take a moment to look at the BIG pinboard. I might not be able to make a Martha-Stewart-quality decoupage, but I have never been incarcerated (zing). This pressure you might be feeling from looking at a million pins – let it go. Your living room is great the way it is, because it’s yours.

Don’t hate me, but I’m totally “That person” who makes home-made snacks every day, can decorate a cake, keeps a spotless house, decoupages, woodburns, “upcycles” wooden palettes and managed to make a coffee table out of a fish tank and wine bottles, and a tasteful display “shrine” out of a large cardboard box and a bed sheet.

I also have no kids, work from home, art skills I’ve been developing for fifteen years and have a degree and a half in, and agoraphobia which means I never leave the house without my partner. That, and our house is awesomely decorated because I’m a full-time artist and the more art that’s on the walls is less art in my precious closet space, which is in fact a disaster zone and a concussion hazard.

So, I think perfect Pinterist behavior comes with a certain degree of neurosis, or just cleaning the daylights out of the spot you want to take the photo and secretly having the rest of your home in shambles because you do, in fact, have three kids and a dog and you know those precious bunny cupcakes are going to be devoured and all over everything as soon as you leave to get your fish eye lens.

http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

I demand pics! I can clean and decorate cookies and my house is kinda cool, but I cannot build shit to save my life

koolchicken

I totally get you. I don’t pin pics of my perfect crafts, but I do copy every awesome one I see. I do plan to start taking photos of my stuff though, if only for something to do. Tomorrow I’m doing the colored glass thing (modge podge and food coloring) so I have something pretty to put my scissors and sharpies in. May as well. I only have one kid, a husband that only works 10 days a month, I stay at home, and I don’t leave the house for weeks at a time. That kid, he’s happy to play next to me for hours. That husband, loves being an involved Dad/husband. Quite frankly I don’t know how anyone with 3 kids and a dog finds time for Pinterest. I’d be dead from the stress. That’s why I have one kid, an involved husband, don’t leave the house…

AS

Don’t people realize that we just sit at our desks pinning away and go home and forget about it. If you looked at my pins you’d think I was a nicely dressed and manicured master chef that traveled the world buying expensive antiques for my artistic mansion. In reality I haven’t slept in a week, haven’t cooked since I got pregnant over a year ago, and probably won’t make it out of the country for at least another 5 years. I don’t think a pin has made me feel bad, ever.

http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

hahah word!

LiteBrite

I’m kind of over Pinterest. I haven’t checked on it in weeks. I spend all day staring at a computer screen, so by the time I get home the last thing I want to do is stare at another computer screen, even one on an iPhone. I like the stuff I find on there, but I know I’ll never have the time to actually do it.

Actually, I think I’m over social media in general. Or maybe I’m just crabby right now.

TngldBlue

Your cat apple made me snort soda up my nose. I’m totally making that and giving as Christmas gifts this year.